


Autumn, Truth, and the Coming of Spring

by gaytoxe



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (not really since it’s only mentions but i thought i’d still put it), Alternate Universe - Postgame, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, postgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 01:43:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21007646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaytoxe/pseuds/gaytoxe
Summary: Kaito kicks at a pile of leaves and exhales, watching his now slightly bigger puff of air fade away in a flash as he keeps walking.The one thing he thought the most about in the hospital was the stars, but those memories are stained red with wine and blurred out by the nights he spends at the dimly lit bars drinking beer until he’s had enough to be tipsy but not enough to not be able to drive home without hitting a tree.





	Autumn, Truth, and the Coming of Spring

**Author's Note:**

> an idea? i liked thinking about them reuniting in some fashion if kaito never necessarily apologized yet while he was in the hospital postgame. i hope you enjoy!
> 
> if you liked this, i have a tumblr where i edit and post random things, as well as where we can talk! look for @gaytoxe.

All the days are the same, just colder and a little more lonely. Plus the piles of red, yellow and brown leaves that sit outside when Momota gazes out the window.

Kaito drinks. Maybe a little too much. And then he does it again. He pounds his fists into his pillow and he sits on the couch, head in his hands.

It repeats, and he freezes over every single minute his body remains in the same state it always has been since the hospital let him go.

His heart is frozen solid, stuck in an icy prison he built by himself. Alone.

His hands are shaking with the same hammer he’s had to make the structure. He doesn’t stop shaking, and he doesn’t breathe.

Hair messy and eyes blurry, he stumbles outside, hastily grabbing a coat and throwing it on himself. And he walks. He doesn’t know where, but he walks.

And all he wishes he could really do was take everything he did back in that stupid hospital.

“I feel as though all your feelings about this form of hero you have in your mind stems from one ocean,” his therapist explains, crossing her right leg over her left as she stares down at her notebook full of notes most likely relating to their session. “Like how many rivers eventually end up in one place.”

He had stopped listening to her until she forcefully ended the group sessions, finally changing something so his time there wouldn’t be as repetitive as before. 

Although it didn’t stop him from not listening, that’s the one thing he remembers so well.

Maybe a little more, once he thinks about it, breath puffing out from his lips and fading away quickly as his boots crunch over autumn leaves speckled brown and red.

“You have things you don’t like about yourself,” she tells him, “and that’s okay. Expecting yourself to be perfect is never something you can achieve, and that’s okay.”

She sits up, and even though Kaito doesn’t respond, she keeps speaking to him, as if she knows he’s tuning out the static in his brain just to listen a little.

“I’m supposed to be talking to you about season 53, but in all honesty,” she gripes, “I don’t feel as though it would benefit you in the slightest.”

Kaito kicks at a pile of leaves and exhales, watching his now slightly bigger puff of air fade away in a flash as he keeps walking.

The one thing he thought the most about in the hospital was the stars, but those memories are stained red with wine and blurred out by the nights he spends at the dimly lit bars drinking beer until he’s had enough to be tipsy but not enough to not be able to drive home without hitting a tree. 

He needs a drink, he thinks, and he strolls down, following the same speckled path of red, brown and yellow as the sun lowers into hiding further and further behind the trees. For a long time.

And feels tired, too tired to keep walking. He sits down on the hard sidewalk and leans up against the wall, breathing hard.

The moon sits high up in the sky, and he notes in silence that it’s third quarter, trying to spot any stars.

But air escapes his windpipe and the same burning feeling of whiskey enters his throat, the same vision he always has when he allows his brain to think.

Hands clamped around his throat, a grin plastered on his smug face as Ouma spouts on and on about how it’s his fault. Kaito’s fault.

His fault. His fault. Your fault. Your fault. Always your fault. Weak. You’re weak. You were never what they wanted.

They wanted a hero, but you were never a hero.

The spiral tightens like that, forever, until dark splotches fill his vision and he falls deeper and deeper into that same phrase that hits him harder and tougher.

-

The next breath Momota takes is warm air that’s unlike what he remembers, and he shoots up from a seemingly soft bed, eyes filling with sight again. His head snaps back and forth, staring at his surroundings and realizing they aren’t his at all.

To his right is a window, with a small plant sitting on the sill tilted towards the sunlight. Sun peaks through to hit the purple sheets on the bed he’s in, and Kaito squints to look outside.

It’s morning.

Just where the fuck is he? And how the hell did he get there?

He turns, and once he turns, his heart stops mid-beat as tears form behind his eyelids and threaten to escape them.

In the doorway is Ouma, purple hair in the same curls it always have been with tired eyes that bore right into him.

“You have some explaining to do,” is all he tells him, and it’s all it takes for the tears to fall down Kaito’s cheeks and dampen the purple blanket that keeps him warm.

An igloo cracks.

-

“That’s all for today,” his therapist tells him, gazing at her notes for quite some time and setting it down. “How do you feel?”

Kaito stares at the plant that sits on her windowsill and as he squints, noting it’s afternoon, he replies, “Okay.”

And she nods, quickly scribbling down something before resting her pen down.

“Good. And the alcohol?”

“Trying to stay away from it,” Kaito says, and he sighs. “Kokichi’s helping me out with it.”

“I’m glad,” she admits, and she exhales gently. “Take care of yourself. I’ll see you next week.”

“Right.”

Kaito drives home and he inhales, feeling a real and free gulp of air fill his lungs. He’s free. He’s okay. Maybe not completely okay just yet, but it’s a start.

He’s him, and even though he’s not like who he was, he’s him. Kaito Momota. Just without the Luminary Of The Stars part.

“A start of recovery,” he mumbles to himself, cranking up the music from the disks he hadn’t touched since he started drinking from his radio.

-

“Therapy went well?” Ouma asks as he steps into the green room, reflection barely visible in the window in front of Momota.

He fiddles with his thumbs, glass all around as plants line them and lean towards the sun. And the sun beams down at him, and he squints his eyes to look outside.

It’s evening.

Breath shaky, Kaito thinks about all he blurted out to the plants, but more importantly, how much Ouma overheard him saying. 

“Yeah,” he says finally, but a warm hand rests on top of his shaking fingers that are clasped together, taking hold of his hand and intertwining their fingers as Ouma bumps his shoulder against his and watches the sun set.

“It’ll be okay. You know that, right?”

And Kaito eyes fill with tears again as the sun kisses his forehead, ice melting away.

Ouma gently places a kiss on his cheek and rubs the back of his hand with his thumb, telling him, “You aren’t the same person as you were before.”

Prison turned to meadow, daffodils adorn the green grass Momota rests on. He squints his eyes at the sun, watching it rise again. 

And, finally, he breathes again, knowing that he’s got shit to go through.

But this time, he’s different. He’s not the Ultimate Astronaut, nor is he anything to do with it.

He’s him. He’s Momota.

God, does it feel good to finally be real again.


End file.
